Well played Norwich, the best team won today ............. by a mile. You`ll be well & truly safe come the end of the season, as for us, we must start getting something from away games. I`m starting to think that when we play away, perhaps we should start off with a defence.
defence is a shambles and shows that with our injured players out we don't have anybody good enough to take their place....we were well beaten by the better side on the day and if we don't get this defence sorted there will be many poor days to come. 2-0 within 10 minutes is unacceptable and very poor defending...shocking
Heard a radio summary where the commentator said that he was disappointed for Rodgers. Well. I'm disappointed IN Rodgers. Rightly he has taken the plaudits when we perform well so he has to expect the opposite when we don't. Yesterday was not acceptable. We are still suffering a hangover from the Championship in many areas:- We defend badly away from home - a complete opposite to the Liberty. Why? A football pitch is a football pitch. The team still has little idea of how to deal with set pieces. Ditto the high ball. Will Moras and his 6ft5" make a difference. I fervently hope so. We are still edgy under consistent pressure. Allowed the space to play, we do - not allowed, we struggle to cope. We have praised Buck's tactical nous but Lambert completely out-thought him yesterday. After two quick mickey-mouse concessions, we actually managed to look the better team for the rest of the first half. Far from us building on that in the second period, Norwich easily got on top and stayed there - speaks volumes about the effectiveness of what went on in the dressing room at half time. Now our football. That we didn't rate a mention by the pundits on MOTD says it all; they didn't even bother to talk about us. Our problems are self-evident. It seems that we are content to be top of the passing table and regard that as some sort of achievement. Passing without end product is worthless. Goals win matches. Stacking up the passing stats by knocking it about at the back does not. I daresay any LOW side could look equally pretty doing that, so long as the other team stood back and only made token attempts to get the ball whilst biding their time before applying real pressure where it matters. The look on Buck's interview face said it all. Norwich was a game that we would have targeted at least a point from (no disrespect) and we didn't get close. Maintain that sort of form against teams in our part of the league and the writing is on the wall. Pessimistic? No, just realistic. Yesterday's result puts even more pressure on us and pressure leads to mistakes. We are making enough of those already. I'm not singling out Monk here because defending is a collective responsibility, including the midfield, but he was particularly abysmal - as bad as he was good against Stoke. Not good enough. We need consistency and direction at the back and there was none yesterday. True it was only one game but now one game less to get the points we need to stay up. Buck has got some hard thinking to do. We aren't scoring enough and our defence resembles a colander away from home. Never mind, though, look at the passes we've made!
I don't know a massive amount about Swansea as I don't watch them week in week out, but from outside my general opinion is that you are a very dangerous side capable of some superb slick football and able to literally tear some sides apart. On the down side, I imagine you as a little light-weight and bullyable (is that a word?). It seems to me that if a team works hard against you and puts pressure on then you are very beatable. A little more steel in your side maybe at the expense of some of the slick football (but certainly not all) would see you become more difficult to beat. Away from home that is a necessity.
A fair summation, Kenny. We are capable of superb, slick football, as you say - and yes, much of that fluency does disappear when we are pressured. We are "bullyable" yet we firmly put Stoke and their musclemen in their place at The Liberty. We lack consistency, that is obvious and look a far more potent outfit at home - trouble is, half of our games will be played away! Our "enforcer" Kemy Augustien is due back from injury shortly so I hope he will make a difference and stiffen our light-weight midfield. Some more directness in attack would also help but the trick is to do that without sacrificing our footballing ethic. It's what our manager gets paid for and I'm sure he'll sort it out but sooner rather than later would be nice! Good luck for your season except, of course, in the return fixture.
Ivor i do agree with some points but do you honestly think that we would of expected to beat Stoke even at home with them being a very strong physical team i didnt think we would beat them hoped that we would, monk struggled testerday and unusually Taylor i feel got torn all over the shop. we need caulker back ASAP i did hear early november and Kemy to beef up the midfield (thought joey run his heart out yesterday as did graham, Lita i thought was not with it yesterday and gave the ball away a lot and Dobbs just couldnt get into the game) mark it down as a bad day at the office lets see how they do next saturday. but we must learn from this and i think we will STID
We had a run of 100% no away wins last time we were in the prem that stretched many more games than that, the exact number escapes me but i accepted that we would not win away and i imagine the players did too..... At home you are a class act away, impotent ........ You are a great bunch and i hope you adress this before its too late..
Brendan needs to sort out our defence for away matches that's for sure, ash needs to up his game as he has been poor on the road and gives the impression he is overrated, he is making to many errors for my liking. roll on January where we must get better players in that can defend...
Dai - correct in both your posts. Ivor. You read my mind. Can't disagree with a single sentence. I'm all for keeping possession and knocking it about at the back if it's early in the game or if we're ahead but doing it on 85 minutes when we're 3-1 down? Absolute rubbish. Defensively we were shocking yesterday, and as good as Monk was against Stoke he was terrible yesterday. Williams not much better. Moras has to be a better option than Monk surely? Lots of work required on the training field imo - particularly on how to deal with set pieces. Roll on the return of Caulker! As you say, Rodgers has to carry the can for these lapses. Also, I can't believe that having outmuscled Stoke our little tiddlers in midfield looked just that yesterday - awfully lightweight. As you say, Lambert well-briefed his players. Anyone who previously shouted me down when I said Agustien was the man must be rethinking now. Can't wait for his return. Can you imagine anyone out-muscling him? Still in a good position in the League and we're still learning, including our much revered Manager. But if we play like that next week Wolves will take us easily.
Oops!! Talked about Monk and Sunderland in an earlier post and, of course, I meant Stoke. Must be the home strips of red & white stripes! Dai, agree with the point about Ash. He's put in a few dodgy performances away from home and he's got to sharpen up as well as Monk. I think they are both struggling with the higher quality players they are facing, although, no disrespect to a fine club in Norwich, the players they faced yesterday were not really a leap in class - about a similar standard I would say. They just played a damn sight better than ours. Beppe, like you I hoped rather than expected us to beat Stoke. That we did was in no small way down to some excellent defence in which Monk and Ash were prominent. Which begs the question, what happened yesterday???? A bad day at the office? Maybe, but we can't afford for any of our players to have such days when we are playing against teams in our mini-league. I know players don't choose to do this but I'm hearing that Norwich seemed much more up for it than our lot. No excuse for that. I'm hoping that Kemy and Caulker returning, together with lamp-post, Moras, will add a bit of beef to us but we need to get moving smartly. Think on. If we are in a dark hole come the January transfer window, what quality players would want to come to us? Would they really want to sign for a struggling team in a relegation scrap? I wouldn't and neither will they. The time frame is a lot tighter than many people realise. To attract decent quality players, we will have to at least be in with a fair shout of staying up. The rubbish we served up yesterday has to be the last of its kind and the players have got to perform. And we want GOALS, not passes. Norwich put in more shots and outscored us 3-1 with just 42% possession according to BBC stats. Tell you anything? It does me. It tells me that whilst we were faffing about kidding ourselves that we were Arsenal reincarnated, the opposition was being a sight more effective than us when they did get the ball. And Norwich are not hoof-ball merchants, they play decent stuff. Food for thought and I hope that Buck has got a hearty appetite.
HTR, needless to say, I agree absolutely with your post and, as you say, if we don't step it up some more mini-league points will disappear against Wolves.
Ivor spot on, good old kick up the jacksie (no pun meant) in training this week, make them watch the 1st 10 mins and the whole of the 2nd half to let them see what we as a supporter had to watch and make them aware this is not good enough, we know they are going to get beaten this year but at least get beaten trying to get back into the game!! we didint have Ruddy make a save in the second half whatsoever he came off the same colour as Lita with all the sun bathing that he done in the second half
I definitely don't wish to upset anyone on here as I am sure there's nothing sinister in any of the above comments but I'm just not really sure it's appropriate to be making jokes about players skin colour or ethnicity.
Don't think there was a joke about Lita's skin colour, he is black (or coloured for the PC around here) , saying that someone could be like him when they are white (why is that ok to say when black is not?) is firmly meant to be tounge-in-cheek IMO
It was a joke about Ruddy standing motionless in the sun all afternoon and how his colour would change as a result if it, I cannot see how that is having a joke about Leroy Lita's actual skin colour never mind his ethnicity.
